I keep thinking about the idea of writing an ebook that doesn’t perpetuate the expectation that a book needs to be read in a straight line. I know this isn’t a new idea; that’s what the hypertext movement was all about. But the idea of doing this resurfaced for me again this morning while reading Phil Smith’s book on mythogeography. He has embedded hyperlinks in the ebook that encourage you to go off on tangents.
I like the idea of a reader following whatever catches their attention and being able to move through the text by curiosity rather than obedience.
This interests me because I think many people buy books and never finish them. Maybe part of the problem is the old expectation that a book must be read from cover to cover. We inherit that model from school, from print culture, and from the physical shape of the book itself. But not every book needs to work that way.
Fiction often depends on sequence, especially when it follows a classical story arc. But essays, field notes, philosophical fragments, personal reflections, guides, and idea-books might be better served by a looser structure. A hyperlinked ebook could invite the reader to wander, return, skip, loop, and discover.
The point wouldn’t be to make the book easier in a shallow sense. It would be to make the book more alive to the way people actually read now: dipping in, following associations, chasing questions, and making their own route through the material.
A book like this wouldn’t simply contain links. It would be written as a linked experience. The hyperlinks would become part of the architecture of the text. They would let the reader participate in the journey rather than just consume the sequence chosen by the author.
Maybe the ebook is closer to a living map than just an electronic copy of a physical book.